Twelve Days of Christmas: Joyeux Noel
by Brightness Wordweaver
Summary: The Heart of Gold crew makes a detour, and Arthur and Trillian have a talk. Part of my Twelve Days of Christmas ficathon.


A/N: Welcome to Day Three of my Twelve Days of Christmas ficathon! Each day will be a different fandom, so look for the full list on my profile. Today's loose prompt: three French hens.

...

Arthur Dent was beginning to regret admitting to a desire to visit France.

What he'd meant, obviously, was the proper France, the one that had been on Earth before it got obliterated by Vogons. He'd always meant to go have a look at it, but had never got round to it, and it didn't seem likely that he would ever get the chance now. Even if they felt like doing something as dangerously stupid as going back to Magrathea and poking about on the reconstructed Earth, it wouldn't be the same.

Zaphod, when Arthur had chanced to mention his erstwhile plan to visit France, had somehow thought he meant a small island on the planet Damogran. Nobody in the vicinity of Damogran had ever heard of Earth, so Arthur wasn't sure where the name was supposed to have come from, but Zaphod, bored with wandering aimlessly, had latched onto the destination like a lamprey onto a river trout.

"Won't they have people there looking for the _Heart of Gold_?" Trillian had said.

"No, why would they?" Zaphod had asked.

"Because," Trillian had continued patiently, "Damogran is where you stole the _Heart of Gold_ from in the first place?"

"Oh, that!" Zaphod had shrugged expressively. "Then it's the last place they'll expect us to go. It'll be fine. Buckle up, Earthman. France, here we come!"

The France on Damogran had turned out to be a small, brown, crescent-shaped island in the middle of one of the planet's many archipelagos. There was absolutely nothing on it except for some crumbling scientific buildings and one very large abandoned hangar. Zaphod had Trillian park the _Heart of Gold_ in it, saying something about irony.

Ford and Zaphod disappeared to look for Frond-Crested Eagle nests, and Arthur walked up and down a bit. There didn't seem to be much point: every part of the island looked about the same as every other part, and you could see the whole island from wherever you happened to stand on it. At last, he sat down on a largeish rock and stared balefully at the ocean.

"You know, a lot of weird coincidences happened on Damogran while they were building the _Heart of Gold_," said a voice behind him, and Arthur whirled round to find Trillian standing there, looking pensive. "Because of the improbability drive, you know. This island getting named France was just one of them-maybe a bigger one than most."

Arthur raised and lowered one shoulder. "I was counting the days since I took off with Ford," he said quietly. "I never bothered before, because there didn't seem to be much point, but I just discovered that there's a little piece of my home out here that no one knows about, so I thought I'd try. And I'm not sure I got the count right, but it ought to be Christmas."

Trillian sat down on the rock beside him.

"It's just one more thing that's gone, I suppose," Arthur went on, half to himself. "Along with the tea, and elephants, and mattresses that never flolloped." There was a brief pause, and then he turned to Trillian. "What were you going to do for Christmas, this year, if the Earth hadn't got blown up?"

Trillian thought for a moment. "I suppose I would have ended up with my aunts," she said reflectively. "There were three of them, and each of them was nice in her own way-one of them gave me Benjy-mouse and Franky-mouse-but together they were simply awful. They always used to tell me I ought to get married and have a lot of children. They're gone, too, I guess."

Arthur considered this. "I don't think I would've done anything, really," he said slowly. "Which sounds dull, when you say it like that, but I would've enjoyed it. I would've gone to a party the night before, and slept in that morning, and maybe gone down the pub later on." He gestured vaguely with his arms. "Instead, here we are."

"Here we are," Trillian agreed. "On the Island of France, on the planet Damogran."

"Watching Zaphod and Ford try to break open a Frond-Crested Eagle's nest, I think," Arthur said, recognizing the paper-mache-like object from the Guide's description.

Silence fell again, but it was a less stiff silence somehow. There was something, Arthur thought, in having someone sensible like Trillian to say things to so that they didn't bother you as much anymore.

"Merry Christmas, Trillian," he said.

"Merry Christmas, Arthur," Trillian replied.

At this point, Ford and Zaphod came racing up the beach hotly pursued by a mother Damogran Frond-Crested Eagle, which, although rather unparticular about the survival of her young, was inclined to resent the tampering with of her nest, which had taken her a long and difficult time to construct. Both Betelgeuseans seemed rather inclined to leave in a hurry, so Arthur and Trillian ran with them back to the _Heart of Gold_.

Once back on the ship and headed for orbit, Zaphod actually apologized for spoiling Arthur's sightseeing-he seemed to be under the impression, possibly passed onto him by Ford, that a rather solemn moment had been interrupted. Arthur said, quite honestly, that it was nothing.

He'd gotten what he needed from the place.


End file.
